Music therapy is classified as a cognitive-behavioral intervention that helps patients by providing them with a greater sense of self-control in assessing and managing pain (AHCPR, 1992). In 1992, recommendations by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality included music as one type of cognitive-behavioral intervention for pain management (AHCPR, 1992). The exact mechanism as to how music impacts pain sensory systems has not been fully elucidated, but it is thought to engage specific brain functions involved in memory, learning, and multiple motivational and emotional states (Nilsson, 2008). As the most influential theory on the nature of pain, the Gate Control Theory hypothesizes that cognitive-behavioral interventions work by closing the gate of nerve fibers that transmit ascending sensory information to the brain while concurrently modulating input from inhibitory systems and psychological factors, the sum of which leads to a reduction in the pain experience (Tse, 2005; Sendelbach, 2006). The Gate Control Theory posits that music acts as a distracter, diverting attention away from a noxious stimulus by redirecting a person's attention or by involving the individual in a distracting task (Tse, 2005).